Any input Smitty!!!!!! Ideas ,suggestions?
I dont think its to hard to weigh the boats at the begging of the year and maybe a suprise lift in the season. I have a scale if opa wants to borrow it.
MD

Tylor, we all know you have done nothing wrong and are running with in the current rules BUT how can you possably think any fan or other race thinks that this can remotely be what class 6 should be about. Most class 6 guys want to have a place to run there $10k-$25K old A class boats with low mantanace motors. Couldnt you help the class and put in a 454 CI motor and use your talent on the course instead of in the dyno room building power the rest of these guys could only dream of.
MD

Rich Tell Pete to get back to work You are not whining you are just saying what you think and there is no harm in that. It is good to hear what everybody thinks and we all work together. I do not Know everything or Claim too ( Donzilla) But even if I put a so called stock motor in the boat who is judging and checking stock ???

Randy most of the old A class boats had 700 and 800 HP Do you mean the Old F1 boats that ran in the 78- 80 MPH plus range ??? We could buy a prop shaft dyno and test every boat in the parking lot and that would eliminate all tech, inspections, pysicals, and breathalizers and evrybody would save money and broken parts.

Randy, I am not asleep at the wheel. Just reading. I have been trying to find a better mouse trap. The current formula has worked well. But, with the increase in boat count, comes the challenge of keeping everyone happy, and in the game. We have outgrown our current program. I do have some ideas, however listening to all of the teams commenting in here, is more of an asset than anything else. I encourage you guys to keep thinking out loud. Just remember, we are all in this together. No need to hurt any feelings. Most of us take our racing seriously to heart. Lets work together and find a good solution we can all be proud of. 2008 is going to be an incredible year for OPA. There will be some press releases soon that will open some eyes. So lets get it right now, and race our a@@'@ off all season. Smitty

If Cooper would agree, I would provide a prop dyno for POPRA (been thinking about getting one anyways), once you have that info you could assign a weight to the boat and provide a level playing field.

If there are 10+ boats in the field, ending the day by weighing the boats and doing a dyno on the top 3 would not be out of line. Just my .02.

Rick

It is going to a point where you having knowledge of setting up a boat and you can't use it because you are winning you a penalized. If all the boats were the same and somebody won all the time are you going to penalize them after awhile ?? When they made the Factory classes and Super V and Super V lite it took all the engine builders out of the sport accept Mercury. Why would somebody build a 500 or 600 HP motor and then have a bunch of weight thrown on them ?? There has to be some room for human error also.

I agree, but the discussion is how do we ensure the playing field is level. That was all I was proposing, power to weight is a way to level the playing field.

There will always be advantages to running one hull type v another. In addition some guys will always win no matter what they race and some guys will always lose (we should call that the "ball" factor).

By no means would I ever try to take away an advantage that someone has that is earned and I do not think that is what is being discussed here. It is about leveling the playing field.

For years I have been accused of cheating in every motorsport I have run (even with POPRA and the bat boat). I have had motors torn down more than you will ever believe. I have been found legal and illeagal. But in all cases I still support rules that level the playing field as best as possible. In the end, the guys who accused me of cheating could not accept that they were consistently getting beat.

As a Lotus driver I fully understand the concept of power to weight. And it seems to me that is not an unreasonable way to look at the boats. Now the downside is many of the poker run guys we are looking to get in the sport do not have slings, thus how do we weigh their boats. Maybe in those cases we use the manufaturers numbers.

Rick

Opa Rule Book For 2008 Will Stay The Same As It Was For The 2007 And 2006 Season,

Rules Were Set In Place For Three Years

U Guys B$tched For The P6 Class To Be Formed And Move The Small Boats Down A Class, So The F1 Had A Place To Go And Made The Limit 30, Now U Guys Want The 30 Foot Twins Out Of P5 And Then The 38s Moved Up To P3.

Most Of This Conversation Was Based Around Me And Tyler, I Ran My 24 Against 30 and 28 Footers For 2 Years And Busted Her Up Numerous Times And Cost Me Tons Of Money, Last Year P6 Was Formed By The Racers And It Was The Most Boring Class Until Tyler And Goerge Came Out To Give Us Some Competition And We Had A Blast, Tyler Built A P6 Boat To Beat Me And Did A Hell Of A Job Doing It !!!!!

Alot Of These Boats Out There Have The CapaBility To Run In The Front Of The Class, With Stock Power, Testing Different Set Ups And They Could Be There, Me And Jay Tried Tons Of Different Setups This Year And Those 500 and 525 Have A Shot In P5, And Smith Brothers I Told U Two Things To Try And U Could Be In The Front Of Bolth Me And Tyler...

Time To Start Spending Some Time TEsting And Getting The Setup Perfect, This Doesnt Mean Clean The Boat After The Race And Show Up To The Next One.. Some Of You Guys Dont Even Wash The Boat And Just Show Up To The Next One

Opa Is In The Process Of A New Gps System Or Speed Device, But The Class Rules Will Stay In Place For One More Season And Then Up For Disscusion And The End Of The 2008 Season.
Opa Has Grown Big Time These Past Two Years And Will Do The Same This Year..

Chris,

After decideing to race again after a couple year hiatus, the first thing I noticed is the same questions are being asked just the class has changed. Two-three years ago this was the P4 division where these same comments occured. Nobody was worried about P5 at the time.

It was the same story, P3 boats were moving to P4 with big power where the former P4 boats could not compete. So what has happened. Boats have continued to move down classes and a new class P6 has emerged. But the problem has not really been solved. While I agree with you that you can overcome much of this with testing, and the guys who test will always run up front. The question that Randy asked was (paraphrasing) how do we level the playing filed so that you do not have to build a new engine just because the other guy did.

At this rate there will be a P10 class real soon that I will be able to run our 46' sedan bridge in (now that would be fun, sitting on the bridge sipping cocktails while racing).

In the end the issue continues to be solved using the same old techniques (add a new class) which in the end really does not solve the issue. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over expecting different results.

While there has been some whining on here, there have also been some good suggestions. Suggestions that could be tried in different formats to see how they work prior to widespread implementation.

Rick